


alas my love you do me wrong

by bookoftheazuresky



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Lucifer and Sandalphon are both fucked up, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: "Tell me, how many of our brethren have you already killed on the Astrals’ orders? How many of those mortals you wanted to safeguard?”A conversation mid-war.





	alas my love you do me wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Fallen angel lore when, Cygames?
> 
> Title is from Greensleeves. Beta by meadowlarked.

Sandalphon flicked blood off of his blade and resheathed it. His mouth twisted with grim satisfaction at the Astrals he had left dying around the room- minor primal beast researchers at an equally minor facility. Their guardian beast he'd only wounded and driven away. He was sure it would slink back soon, drawn by its instinctive need to protect its masters.

Which meant he should be about his task. Sandalphon pulled a folded page from his pocket and snapped it open, the creases smoothing out without his touch. Drawn on it in bold, dark strokes was a spell array that seemed to float a hair above the paper.

Dumping one of the bodies off of the main console, Sandalphon laid the codex page on the interface and touched it with a glowing fingertip. The tarnished gold color washed across the black design, then traced paths to the edges of the page and into the console. The monitor fuzzed for a moment, windows popping up, then abruptly cleared to display a progress bar. It swiftly started filling up- either their encryption wasn't very good or Raziel had improved his system cracking. Maybe both.

Still, the skin between Sandalphon's shoulderblades was prickling with tension by the time it was finished. He hated to stay in enemy territory for this long, particularly underground. And the Astrals seemed to be getting smarter about fortifying down instead of up. The airy, falsely pleasant Astral outposts like the one he had been made in had become obsolete, too dangerous to maintain in war unless they were deep behind the Astral lines. And sometimes not even then, Sandalphon thought with a smirk. It quickly faded. There was something wrong here. He couldn't put his finger on what it was, but he itched to manifest his wings and draw his sword.

The monitor chimed, and the codex page faded to black and white once more, the stark lines of the original array now surrounded by a complex pattern of thinner spokes: the data he'd been sent after. He scooped it up and tucked it back in his pocket.

His instincts were screaming at him that he was in danger. He drew his blade once more and pushed his senses outward.

Sandalphon didn’t _think_ , just _moved_ , folding space in a quick ghost-step into the maze of the facility’s passages. He managed the second jump, but on the third he almost stumbled as he landed, forced to pause in a dark, high-ceilinged room filled with faintly glowing tetra-element crystals.

“Sandalphon,” Lucifer said, voice heavy with sorrow.

The mana emanations in this room made his teeth hurt. Sandalphon told himself that was why he was clenching his jaw. “Lucifer,” he said, deliberately clipping the name of all formalities, all warmth. He turned, _knowing_ it was stupid but unable to help himself.

Time had not touched the primarch, any more than it had Sandalphon himself. But that didn’t mean that the war hadn’t left its mark. Lucifer was still luminously beautiful, but it was a glow riddled with shadows now. Stars were defined by the darkness that surrounded them, and Lucifer was burning brighter than ever in an attempt to defy it.

He was, inevitably, going to lose. Entropy always won in the end.

Sandalphon found a certain bleak comfort in the fact that he would certainly be dead when that happened. Even on the opposite side of the war from Lucifer, the thought still turned his heart brittle.

“Why this, Sandalphon?” Lucifer asked, quiet and so very, very tired. “I’ve wondered, over and over, why you left. To become an assassin of the Fallen, no less. You’re not an angel of night, so why?”

“Why.” It was a single mocking syllable. There was just so much that was wrong with the question.

What it came down to was that there was no _future_ in loving Lucifer, staying by his side. Sandalphon was a failure to be discarded at Lucilius’ whim, at best dropped into stasis against some future need, at worst unmade for being _intractable_.

Lucifer had been kind to him, it was true. But that was just the kind of person Lucifer was. And kindness without understanding was water for the drowning. He’d been rattling his wings against the bars of his cage for nearly as long as he’d been alive. Maybe if he’d been made with a purpose he could have borne it…but considering how _many_ traitors had flocked to the banner of the Fallen, perhaps not.

Sandalphon shut his mouth on, _You._ On, _look at me, really see me, I would do anything._ Instead he said, “You’ll just have to kill me.” Of all the resolutions to this situation that weren’t insubstantial daydreams, that one had the most appeal. Dying on Lucifer’s blade would bring the story of his life neatly full circle. Born for Lucifer, also to die by his hand.

At Lucifer’s flinch, Sandalphon homed in. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, exactly, but pain on his behalf, pain caused by him, _that_ said he wasn’t just another faceless doll that Lucifer was supposed to safeguard. “Oh, you don’t like that? Have you not noticed all the people I’ve killed? I left a few back in the control room if you’re feeling curious. After all, I may not have a purpose, but an angel is still a _weapon_.”

Lucifer’s reply was disapproving. “We are more than that.”

“ _You_ are more than that. Not that it seems like it these days. Tell me, how many of our brethren have you already killed on the Astrals’ orders? How many of those mortals you wanted to safeguard?” He knew Lucifer well, it was easy to go for the sore spots. Sandalphon asked, throwing out other names to see what reactions he got, “Are you going to refuse to kill Raziel? As I recall, you liked him too. Azazel, maybe? You’ve never met Shemhazai off the battlefield, but she’s barely twenty. Where’s the line? At what point are you our primarch instead of their soldier?”

“I…” Part of him rejoiced to see Lucifer silenced, that his words had bitten deep. The rest…Lucifer didn’t know the answer, it was clear from his face. And if Lucifer didn’t know, then no answer to his _real_ question would be forthcoming. Even if he could articulate it to himself, forge that inchoate longing into words.

Still, Sandalphon had come off something like the victor here. He didn’t think Lucifer would pursue him now. “You should think about it,” Sandalphon advised.

He was close enough to snap off a teleport to the surface. The sun was setting now, smearing the sky with streaks of red. Sandalphon spread his wings at last and dove, shrouding himself to keep away unfriendly eyes.


End file.
